Beyond the Forge World Agripinaa.
The Conqueror, once the flagship of the World Eaters during the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy, and a vessel that had served under the Daemon Primarch Angron himself, was a battleship of immense mass and firepower. It was locked in a brutal exchange of macro and lance fire with the largest orbital defense platform of Agripinaa.
This ringed bastion, bristling with plasma hives, macro-batteries, missile silos, and layered autocannon turrets, was a key strategic defense node of the Adeptus Mechanicus in the Segmentum Obscurus.
This was a battle of brute force, utterly devoid of finesse.
Neither side attempted maneuver warfare or precision strikes. Both forces simply exchanged enough firepower to annihilate the other.
The platform unleashed continuous salvos of torpedoes, lance strikes, and macro-battery volleys. The Conqueror's void shields shimmered under the sustained bombardment. Energy rippled across the shields with every impact as the ancient battleship absorbed the incoming fire and returned it in kind with its own heavy batteries.
But such a slugfest could only end one way: in ruin.
Eventually, the Conqueror would be overwhelmed and torn apart by the concentrated firepower.
But the Conqueror was not alone.
Trailing in its wake were more than thirty cruisers of various Chaos design patterns, ranging from corrupted Imperial Navy vessels to relic warships dating back to the Great Crusade itself.
Each ship bore the marks of prolonged Warp exposure and the influence of the Dark Gods. Daemon-infested plating pulsed like diseased muscle beneath cracked armor. Crimson runes burned across their hulls. The eight-pointed star of Chaos had been carved directly into their prows, while braziers filled with warp-fire illuminated gun decks once maintained by Tech-priests loyal to Mars.
Several vessels no longer resembled standard warships at all. One cruiser possessed rows of exposed teeth around its launch bays that mechanically opened and closed like a living maw. Another leaked streams of corrosive slime and corpse matter from ruptured hull seams directly into vacuum. Vox traffic between the traitor ships was filled with distorted prayers, kill-chants, and overlapping screams from bound daemons wired into their communication systems.
As the defense platform concentrated its firepower on the Conqueror, the escorting cruisers opened fire with full broadsides. Macro-shells, warp-tainted torpedoes, and lance strikes saturated the void around the station.
After two volleys, the Conqueror and the trailing allied cruisers launched a coordinated boarding assault.
Warp lightning flared, casting a baleful light across the fleet, as boarding torpedoes, teleportariums, and breaching claws were deployed. Chaos Space Marines, berserker warbands of the Foresworn, clad in spiked and blood-covered Mark IV and Mark V power armor corrupted by centuries within the Warp, launched directly into the defense platform's interior.
Once aboard, the Heretic Astartes advanced with unrelenting purpose toward weapon nodes and command centers. Despite unfamiliarity with the station's architectural layout, they advanced like an iron tide, guided by an instinct honed by millennia of slaughter and the murderous whispers of Khorne, the Blood God.
The Chaos Marines forced their way to critical systems with terrifying efficiency, bolters barking and chainaxes howling in joy. The scent of blood and burning incense filled the air, mingling with the shrieks of Tech-priests torn apart mid-canticle.
Skitarii cohorts attempted last stands at corridor chokepoints but were swept aside in gory storms of violence of the attackers.
Sicarian Infiltrators launched ambushes from maintenance tunnels while Kastelan Robots advanced in disciplined firing formations offering fierce resistance, only to be overwhelmed in close-quarters combat by chainblades, power fists, and melta charges.
Soon, the platform's void shields were disabled from within. Energy relays detonated in cascading overloads as shield projectors collapsed one after another. Across Mechanicus vox-channels, machine spirits emitted streams of corrupted warning code and distress signals before falling silent.
Now, the platform stood fully exposed to shipboard fire.
Though not yet destroyed, its once-formidable weapons systems were steadily silenced. One after another, Gun decks collapsed inward under repeated bombardment. Command towers vanished beneath secondary explosions. Vox-networks drowned in static and fragmented distress-litanies to the Omnissiah.
Agripinaa possessed multiple orbital defense platforms, but all of them were being overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the traitor fleet. Some had already been crippled or disabled. Others were being systematically dismantled piece by piece through boarding assaults and concentrated bombardment.
From the moment this Heretic armada entered the system, the Forge World had been doomed to react rather than resist.
No prayers to the Omnissiah could stem the tide of madness and ruin.
Agripinaa's fate was sealed.
....
Aboard the Conqueror, on the command bridge.
Kossolax the Foresworn sat upon his throne, a massive construct of iron, brass, bone, and riveted armor plating. Chains hung from the frame alongside skulls and battlefield trophies taken from conquered enemies across centuries of war.
He endured the unrelenting torment of the Butcher's Nails, implanted deep into his brainstem. The Nails screamed like a choir of metal crows inside his mind, urging him to butcher, to kill, to lead the slaughter with his own hand.
He clenched his fists, crimson gauntlets shrieking under pressure, restraining the bloodlust coiling beneath his skin like a caged beast.
His eyes remained fixed on the monolithic Brass Blood-Vat at the center of the bridge.
From the vat's ceiling, writhing, living captives hung from barbed hooks, their screams filling the chamber. Their blood dripped steadily into the pool below, each drop a psychic echo, symbolizing a starfighter, a war machine, or a combatant elsewhere on the battlefield.
The vat offered a real-time map of the warzone to all within the bridge.
Crafted by the daemon-smiths of Skarvax Forge, the vat was part divinatory engine, part unholy altar, a relic gifted by a daemon prince of Khorne.
Kossolax studied the flow of battle in the shifting currents within the blood-filled basin for several moments before laughing.
Victory was assured.
He, Kossolax the Foresworn, once a champion cast out by his own Traitor Legion, the World Eaters, had clawed his way back into the annals of infamy through conquest and attrition. Marked by exile, he bore the title "Foresworn" not as shame, but as defiance. He had transformed it into a declaration of independence.
He had renounced not only the High Orders of his fallen Legion but even the hierarchy of the Eye. Now, he carved his name into history with blood and fire, his warband a bladed instrument of raw conquest.
He had abandoned the leash of Angron's rage, but not the legacy of violence that came with it.
He wasn't alone on the bridge. Besides the Foresworns of his own warband, there were representatives of the Thousand Sons, the Night Lords, and the Death Guard.
Each bore their Legion's corruption with pride, arcane script glowing across the armor of the sorcerous Thousand Sons, the air around them humming with eldritch static, winged shadows flickering around the reaper-cloaked Night Lords, and the fetid aura of rot that clung to the Death Guard like a second skin.
Despite their differences, all present were satisfied with the campaign's progress.
"This battle lacks any real challenge," came a woman's voice from across the chamber.
A moment later, a woman in a pristine white naval officer's uniform appeared beside Kossolax.
Her uniform was an archaic cut, naval-born but not of any recognizable Imperial fleet, as if the echo of a bygone war still clung to her shoulders. Her presence carried authority that did not rely on rank insignia or military ritual.
Her eyes glowed faintly with pale light. Strange data-scrolls hovered behind her like translucent specters, feeding her real-time feeds of the ship's operations through no visible interface.
Kossolax scowled at her. He bristled at her dismissal of the battle's significance but refrained from striking her down.
She was too... strange.
Her control over the Conqueror was uncanny. She could command systems and subsystems he himself, the ship's warlord, could not.
Without her, the Conqueror would grind to a halt.
Whispers among the crew named her the Ship-Witch, though none dared speak it aloud in Kossolax's presence.
"I planned all of this!" Kossolax snarled. "I united the warbands. I struck a bargain with Huron. This battle should have been a grind, but I found a way to make it swift."
The campaign against Forge World Agripinaa had been planned long in advance.
Kossolax's strategy was simple: unite several warbands under a single cause. The wildcard had been the Red Corsairs.
The Red Corsairs, a fleet-based Chaos warband led by the infamous Lufgt Huron, now Chaos Lord Huron Blackheart, the Tyrant of Badab, were notorious: pirates, renegades, and Chaos Space Marines with a vast fleet at their command. They were not known for altruism.
Initially, Huron had refused to participate. He was a cautious tactician, not one to leap headfirst into a Forge World's defenses, until Kossolax was ready to give up on persuading him. That's when Huron made his offer.
The Corsairs would engage and harass the Imperial Navy near Agripinaa's outer system, allowing Kossolax's coalition to strike unimpeded. They asked for no spoils from the forge world.
Their price?
That Kossolax, at some later date, would help them seize a few ships from a minor Imperial faction known as Talon, ships Huron claimed were of "particular interest."
Kossolax believed his strategic genius, not brute strength was what had ensured this battle's one-sided slaughter.
"Hmph. You'll come to regret the foolish deal you made with Huron," the woman said coldly, then vanished without another word. Her form dispersed into a flicker of ghost-light and vanishing vox-chatter.
Kossolax frowned. Was she abandoning her duties? Without her, the Conqueror would be little more than a hulk of drifting iron and rage.
But the ship kept firing without interruption. The orbital platform ahead of them was breaking apart, its flak turrets torn open like tin, spilling servitors and skitarii into vacuum.
Even in her absence, the vessel obeyed her touch like a loyal beast awaiting its mistress's return. It unsettled him.
"The last obstruction is gone," Kossolax murmured.
He massaged the skin near the Butcher's Nails embedded in his skull, then turned back to the blood-holoscope, the great Brass Blood Pool at the center of the bridge.
The blood had now filled the entire basin, yet more continued to drip without spilling over. The surface shimmered like mercury infused with warp-fire.
Within the vat's reflection, the entire warzone played out.
His allied ships were regrouping, having obliterated their respective targets. Twisted, mutated silhouettes drifted toward the Conqueror, each representing a different warband, each bearing the marks of different gods.
Since the Brother Wars that followed the Horus Heresy, the Traitor Legions had fractured into countless warbands. Each followed its own dark creed, beliefs, and vendettas. Skirmishes and slaughter among them were common.
But now, for once, they fought as one. Kossolax's plan had forged unity through conquest.
That alone filled Kossolax with pride.
Only the final phase remained: orbital bombardment, followed by decapitation strikes against the forge world's leadership.
"Shalok," Kossolax said, turning toward one of his lieutenants.
A Chaos Space Marine stepped forward, clad in blood-red power armor and wielding a massive chain-axe. His helm, sculpted into a snarling skull, bore fresh gore. Even the floor seemed to shudder beneath his steps.
Throughout the Eye of Terror, rumors claimed Kossolax commanded four principal lieutenants referred to as "The Four," each a master of a specific craft.
Shalok Skulltaker was his Executioner. An embodiment of Khorne's fury, this warrior led the assault forces, inspiring the rank-and-file Berzerkers through sheer brutality and martial prowess.
"Prepare yourself. You'll lead the first wave." Kossolax commanded.
The Skulltaker nodded silently and turned to leave the bridge.
But before he reached the exit, a growl echoed from another Chaos Marine.
"We divide spoils by merit," snarled a foul-smelling figure. "Why should your man have the glory of the first strike? Don't presume to steal our glory."
There was no need to identify him. His stench alone betrayed his gene-sire, Mortarion. He was a Death Guard warlord, clad in corroded Cataphractii plate, his breath rattling with plague-thick phlegm.
"..."
Kossolax stared at the Plague Marine, realizing once more how tenuous this alliance truly was. He could already feel the threads fraying resentment, ambition, rot, all gnawing at the unity he had forged.
Still, he smiled grimly and adjusted his command.
"Fine. Each warband will send its finest. The first wave will be shared. Everyone will have their piece of the slaughter."
.....
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